12-22

After my Arrival Adventure, Nikki and I trekked to her house, dropped off the luggage, and promptly returned to the city.

Paris is amazing. Fabulous. Unlike any other city I’ve ever been to. (Makes a great deal of sense, considering I have really only traveled abroad in Asia.) Wherever you look, there are fantastic old buildings butting right up against each other, even though they were built at different times. There’s history on every street. Different languages dance through the air. During Christmas, you can grab a cup of vin chaud (mulled wine) and a baguette sandwich. The streets are relatively clean, and the architecture is fabulous.

We spent the afternoon at Notre Dame and walked from there to L’Arc de Triomphe, about two kilometers away. This gorgeous stained glass is clearly Notre Dame.

Holy. Crap.

I gotta say, things like Notre Dame totally make me understand why people are Christian. There is something otherworldly about the atmosphere in the church, even though it’s filled to the brim with tourists, or the occasional flash that disturbs the low-light. The ceiling towers in intricate arches overhead with carefully laid bricks adding to the decoration. And then, of course, there are the windows. Color in a grey world. Totally fabulous. At one point, I turned to Nikki and said, “You know how in books, people’s jaws drop when they’re shocked? Yeah, my jaw? It dropped. And I can’t seem to keep it shut.”